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GIMP for Unix-like systems

It's very likely your Unix-like system such as a GNU/Linux distribution
already comes with a GIMP package. It is a preferred method of installing GIMP,
as the distribution maintainers take care of all the dependencies and bug fix
updates. Please note that many distros decide to pin a specific version of
GIMP to their releases.

Ubuntu, Debian

Ubuntu or Debian users can run apt-get install gimp to install
GIMP. Ubuntu users may also install GIMP from Software
Centre, this includes recent GIMP versions from PPAs.

openSUSE

SUSE users can install GIMP by running yast -i gimp or
zypper in gimp, depending on the distribution version.

Fedora

Mandriva

BSD

GIMP is also available for the BSD family of systems such as FreeBSD and
OpenBSD.

Solaris

GIMP can run on Solaris.

GIMP for Mac OS X

Since the 2.8.2 version GIMP runs on OSX natively. No X11 environment is required.

Native builds

Currently there are two main installers:

A GIMP 2.8 DMG installer by Sven Claussner, stock GIMP build without any add-ons.
It works on OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and later.
Just open the downloaded DMG and drag and drop GIMP into your "Applications" folder.

Macports

A (easy?) way to compile and install GIMP and other great Free software on your Mac
is by using Macports. The installer
allows you to choose from a large directory of packages. To install gimp
using Macports, you simply do sudo port install gimp once you have
Macports installed.

Disclaimer: we have not investigated if it's feasible to build
GIMP 2.8 from Macports. The GIMP
port file mentions 2.8.10, and appears to be maintained, however.

Homebrew

Homebrew is similar to Macports and provides packages (aka formulas) to
install, either by compiling them from source or by using pre-made
binaries. While there appears to be no formula for GIMP itself, there are
reports that all dependencies are available. This may help to build GIMP from
source.

Fink

Fink is a package repository that offer mostly precompiled
binaries. It provides the apt-get command known to e.g. Debian and
Ubuntu users, and installing GIMP is as easy as sudo apt-get
install gimp once you have installed the Fink
installer.
If there's no binary package, then fink install gimp
will compile GIMP from source.

Disclaimer: we haven't been able to determine if it is possible to install
or build GIMP 2.8 from Fink. GIMP 2.6.12 appears to be the most recent GIMP package
that is offered
there.